Price: From £1999 inc VAT
Rating: 9
Apple has updated its iMac all-in-one PC with a new option for an ultra-high resolution display, four times that of earlier 27in models, and 16 times the original 720p HD format. Here's our new iMac with 5K Retina display review. Also see: Best all-in-one PCs 2014/2015 and all all-in-one PC reviews.
Apple’s latest iMac stands out for a number of reasons, but most obvious of all is its amazing 27in 5K display. With a screen 5120 pixels wide and 2880 pixels high, it offers the highest resolution of any display currently available and this feature alone makes the £1999 price tag seem more than reasonable.
Of course you get a lot more than just a cutting-edge Retina display with the new iMac all-in-one PC. Being an Apple product the build quality and ergonomics are second-to-none: it’s incredibly well made and almost impossibly slim. The system comes with OS X Yosemite installed, along with a large selection of bundled software you’ll only get from Apple, including Final Cut Pro X, Logic Pro X and Aperture.
However, there’s also a lot you won’t get from an Apple computer. There’s no built-in optical drive and no touch support. Apple has also disabled the ability to use this amazing display as an external monitor - even at lower resolutions. Placing all of the I/O ports at the rear is also a mild annoyance, but the price you must pay for having such a slim design.
We’ve tested the entry-level 5K iMac here, which includes an Intel Core i5-4690 quad core processor, 8GB of DDR3 RAM and a 1TB Fusion Drive, which uses fast solid-state storage to boost the performance of the storage subsystem. Unfortunately, this feature doesn’t work when running Windows, meaning our tests can’t show the kind of performance you’re likely to get under OS X. So, keep in mind that the iMac is actually even faster than our already impressive performance results show.
Under PCMark 8 the iMac is the fastest performer in the Home and Creative tests, with only Chillblast’s Volante AIO coming anywhere close. The Creative result is boosted by the built in AMD Radeon R9 M290X graphics processor which also propels the iMac way ahead of the field in all out gaming tests. You may not think of the iMac as a gaming machine, but our results show it’s a clear winner - even if you do have to buy and install Windows to play most of the games.
The Retina display is not only amazingly sharp but it also delivers excellent colour, being the only display in this round-up able to fully display all the colours in the sRGB gamut. It also delivers by far the best contrast ratio and can go around twice as bright as any of the competition, which is great for watching movies in the daytime. The movies will also sound good, thanks to some powerful internal speakers.
See the next page for our original hands-on review by Andrew Harrison.
Apple iMac Retina 5K hands-on review
A major upgrade to the Apple iMac was made today with the introduction of a 5K Retina display for the 27-inch model. See also: iMac with Retina 5K display release date, price and specs.
At an Apple event broadcast from the company's Cupertino campus, a breakthrough in display technology was the focus of a revision to the all-in-one Mac computer.
New iMac with Retina 5K display review: resolution
It shifts resolution from an already high 2560 x 1440 to a staggering 5120 x 2880 pixels. Alongside the upshift in the number of pixels packed into the panel comes improvements to the construction of the oxide thin-film transistor (TFT), and the compensation film above, to regulate how light exits the panel. That should help ensure that when viewed from an angle the image remains consistent.
To power this new panel Apple developed a new timing controller (TCON) with four times the bandwidth of the previous model, able to handle 40 Gbit/s of data flow.
How does this work in practice? In our brief look at the new iMac with Retina display, the effect is every bit as good as seen from the company’s MacBook Pro with Retina display – only writ large across a huge expanse of display. (See also: Apple iPad mini 3 first-look review.)
New iMac with Retina 5K display review: pixel density
Our quick calculations give this panel a pixel density of around 218 dpi, and peering up close we were unable to see any individual pixels. Stood a little further back, it really is photographic, like the richest, most detailed images you'd find in a photo book.
It was a quick demonstration, but we also couldn't perceive any sense of jitter or reduced framerate that you might expect when so many many pixels – 14.7 million of them – are being refreshed many times per second.
Look out for our full review when we'll be checking how the new iMac deals with fast-moving video.
Graphics processing before the image hits the TCON comes courtesy of an AMD Radeon R9 M290X, with 2 GB of GDDR5 video memory. Or you can opt for an AMD Radeon M295X with 4 GB. (See also: Apple iPad Air 2 first-look review.)
A new main processor powers the iMac with Retina display, a quad-core Intel Core i5, and this can also be configured if required with an Intel Core i7 running at 4.0 GHz. As standard you get 8 GB of system memory, which can be user replaced up to 32 GB.
A Fusion Drive of 1 TB capacity comprising PCIe flash drive with 3.5-inch SATA disk comes as standard. Or you can opt for pure flash memory, either 256, 512 or 1 TB.
Other specifications remain the same, although the two Thunderbolt ports also receive a welcome upgrade to Thunderbolt 2 standard. (See also: Apple Mac OS X Yosemite release date, price and new features: Yosemite available to download today.)
New iMac with Retina 5K display review: UK price
Price of the iMac with Retina 5K display starts at £1999 in the UK. Substituting the 4.0 GHz processor brings the price to £2199, and the higher-spec AMD graphics another £200 again. Want to max out the spec with best CPU, GPU, RAM and storage? Get ready to hand over £3519 for what promises to be the most irresistible all-in-one PC on the planet.
Buying Advice
The iMac with Retina 5K display is obviously in a class of its own, as well it should be at this price. However, the level of performance and ergonomics you get make it a very good value for money option if you can afford it. If you want touch input or to use it as an external display then it’s not for you, but in all other respects it’s an excellent PC and well worth the money
